by GERARD S. HOFF aka (GONG SAN HO)

Zen

Nature delivers the greatest Zen masters in learning how to live in the presence.

The fear of spiders is funny, especially for this one, because it actually looks like a cute, little doggie with 8 legs.

Talking about the legs, they’re covered with hundreds of little hairs, with which the Salticidae or Jumping Spider, can smell, taste and hear. They’re not the spider-web kind of spider, they jump to catch their prey. To determine the precise location, they have four (!) pairs of eyes, that create an almost 360-degree vision and 3-D images. The eyes reflect in the dark when hit by light, imagine…

Looking at this beautiful, sophisticated, high-tech creature reminded me, that eyes are just one of our senses and should never rely solely on them.

You can’t depend on your eyes
when your imagination is out of focus.
– Mark Twain

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Nature delivers the greatest Zen masters in learning how to live in the presence.

Estimates are, there are over a billion of them.

Sheep are one of the earliest animals to be domesticated for agricultural purposes and the most famous one is the Ovis aries. They are as practical as they get for humans, as they produce wool, milk, manure and meat.

Originally sheep is derived from the Old English word scēap (which is the same as Frisian) and it is a single and plural name for the animal. I find that very funny, because in a way they’re never alone.

Sheep play an important role in myths and religion, as they’ve been with people so long!

Egyptians worshipped animals and at various periods held certain animals to be sacred and as representations of their gods and goddesses. Agnus Dei is a Latin term meaning Lamb of God, it refers to Jesus as the perfect sacrificial offering that compensates for the sins of humanity.

In my mind, baby-sheep are the cutest animals. I still remember spring, waiting with my granddad for the lambs to be born. Within seconds they stand up and the next day, they lighten up the green grass fields next to his farm, with their funny jumps.

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Nature delivers the greatest Zen masters in learning how to live in the now.

The mola is the heaviest of all the bony fish, with large specimens reaching 4.3 m vertically and 3 m horizontally and weighing nearly 2,300 kg. They are frequently seen basking in the sun near the surface and are often mistaken for sharks when their huge dorsal fins emerge above the water.

Mola can become so infested with skin parasites, they jump out of the water up to 3.0 metres in the air, in an attempt to shake the parasites (and they are lousy swimmers). They’ll also often invite small fish or even birds to feast on them.

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Nature delivers the greatest Zen masters in learning how to live in the now.

Albatrosses are the biggest birds on earth.
Some of them can have a wing span of 370 centimeters (12 feet). The bones in the wings are hollow to save weight and at the same time make them ultra strong. The front of the wing bone has a rounded shape for aerodynamics.

Albatrosses spend most of their life in the air.
They fly highly efficient and can lock-up the wings in with a special muscle and shoulder joint. By only moving their head they change direction, using dynamic soaring and slope soaring. That way they can fly distances up to a 1000 kilometers a day, effortless.
The only exertion is when they take off.

Life is not about carrying weight,
it’s about floating in the air.
Lock your wings.

Nature delivers the greatest Zen masters in learning how to live in the now.

Giraffes spend most of their lives standing up; they even sleep and give birth standing up. That makes the birth of a giraffe baby, one of the most violent births in the animal kingdom. A drop of 2 meters, right off the smoothing womb.

The giraffe calf can already stand up and walk after about an hour is able to run the first day. Within week, it starts to collecting its own leaves.